Max and me

a relatively new addition to our family, max has become the "man" in my sister's life since she got him in december. when she announced plans for a three-week u.s. vacation this year, it became evident that someone had to be able to drive max while she was out of the country. since my mom was hesitant to apply her rusty manual driving skills to 'matic max, the task of driving fell upon my eager shoulders. thus, lessons and the license.

pimp my (vintage) ride. this is not max by the way.

just goofing around with some props at a shoot i had for work.

My boyf, my copilot

and so marlon flew home for the weekend (not expressly, but mostly) to be my copilot -- a far calmer one than my mom, who i'd taken on two short trips to makati thus far. (i swear. she gets severely unhinged just watching me back out of the garage -- which, truth be told, is the most arduous part of taking max out for a ride.)

i felt incredibly lucky to have marlon by my side as i drove on edsa for the very first time. he was the navigator on my practice drive to the office, and proudly took snaps after i successfully parked max for the first time. (my practice park with mom doesn't count -- she insisted that i park in a space with no cars around me.)

tadaaah! max's inaugural park at the fort

marlon flew back to lah-lah land on sunday morning, leaving max and i to fend for ourselves. although i tend to be over-cautious on turns and on the highway (my 92 year-old grandmother can probably drive faster than i do), i must say i'm doing pretty well...

Buwaya encounter

... except for my very first buwaya encounter yesterday. well, it wasn't even really my fault (yeah lady, that's what they all say). the huge intersection under the shaw boulevard mrt station is a notorious hunting ground for our fine, upstanding reptiles-in-uniform. like true hunters, they have an excellent nose for prey -- a new car, or a new or female driver.

in fact, my mom told me that my sister was pulled over for the very same bogus violation (reckless driving) at that intersection on the first day that she took out max (maybe caution tips them off). these guys are something else -- they are conspicuously absent when traffic goes haywire, but pop out at the faintest whiff of a chance to have merienda on your tab.

you can actually tell when they're just trying to get you to slip them a ninoy. i've seen enough of these things to know the script:

1. they don't tell you the violation right away
2. when they do figure out what to slap on you, they make the consequences of your violation sound really major (seminars, heavy fees, mountains of paperwork, impounding, the coming of the seven signs, a plague upon your children and your children's children, etc etc)
3. dumadami sila
4. they ask where you live or ask to see your license for the address (gathering data for computing the amount they will attempt to squeeze out of you)
5. they ask where you work (more data for their computations)

just when i thought i'd have to turn on the charm, and probably just when they thought they had me, item number five on their kotong script saved me.

Anting-anting

won't go into details, but suffice it to say i'm glad i was wearing my, er... anting-anting around my neck, the mere sight of which struck fear into their black little buwaya hearts. i'm not kidding, natakot talaga sila. just goes to show what a racket the whole pulling-over was -- if there was any truth to it, they would have stood their ground, anting-anting or no.

belat. and so max and i went on our merry way... verrry cautiously. and we've done so ever since. though i know the buwayas can't make a daily catch out of me, ika nga ni ate vi.... you can never can tell.